For Every Exception
by FanaticismForWords
Summary: Here's the thing about war. No one ever really wins. The whole prospect of victor and loser is just a smokescreen to hide the harsh reality of what war really entails. Soldiers come back home with a broken conscious, a broken mind; a broken heart. Here's the thing about war; you will always lose. Elizabeth Stark learned that the hard way.
1. Letter From Author

I know it's been forever. I apologize for that.

I started the exception series in 2017, wrote it long before that. I did not plan on the series to last this long and I did not expect a lot of people to enjoy it so much. The series lasted longer than it should and after watching Endgame I did get a burst of productivity and wanted to continue the series up until Endgame, conclude it there.

But as mentioned before, I wrote the story over three years ago. I went back to the first story, The Only Exception, and found that I was a completely different person back then. What Liz was then, is not what I want her to be now. The first two stories of the series aren't constructed in a way that will allow me to build and progress the story. There is not really much character development for my OC and the plot is very unstable.

Therefore, I completely rewrote the first two stories and am working on the third, gave my OC character a little more depth, a little more character, and changed a lot of the storyline. I'm more confident in my writing now, and I'm confident enough to make changes to the plot, so that it will correspond with the story that I want to tell.

For those who are willing to read the new part, the revamped version of "The Only Exception" and "The Exception to The Rule" are up. I will be updating For Every Exception as regularly as possible, as I already have a few chapters written up. I thank you so much in advance for being patient with me. I have changed as a writer, my writing style is different, my ideas are different, but I'm attached to this series and this OC which is why I'm not scratching everything and writing a completely new story. The first and second part of the series does not make sense at all with the story that I want to tell, and I am sorry if this frustrates some of you but there was no way I could complete the series without changing everything first.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone that is still here. I appreciate the support and hope you understand.

PinkMedow.


	2. Chapter 1

_**you've got your toothbrush next to mine and on the vanity lies your comb  
you're sleeping in my bed and nothing feels more like home **_

"Stark on your right."

The buildings were portentous enough for Steve to call Tony for back up, knowing that the engineer was tinkering in his lab and would have appreciated taking the day off to blow up Hydra bases.

"Widow, what's your stat?"

There's some grunting coming from the other end, but Steve knows better than to assume that Natasha is in any trouble, he's seen her handle far worse than a couple of soldiers that had expected for today to be another lazy Saturday; they were severely unprepared and lacked proper weapons to go against the top-notch ones Stark made.

Steve doubts any weapon could ever top the one Tony makes, doubts any mind could top Tony's.

The three of them work fluently together, six years of fighting side by side engraved into their bones. Tony catches him without caution when he jumps off buildings and lands himself safely before dodging appropriately when his shield bounces around the Hydra agents as Natasha meets up with them on the roof.

"All agents cuffed and out of the building." The spy tells them, despite Tony scanning for heat signatures to make sure.

When he nods in approval, Steve and Natasha scale down the building and moments later, the large building located in the middle of nowhere bursts into flames, taking away Hydra's labs, computers and files.

The red and gold armour descends gracefully, the repulsors a familiar sound, "That was fun."

Natasha puts her guns back into their holsters, "You and I have very different definitions of fun."

The faceplate lifts to reveal Tony's playful smile, "Playing darts with Clint and a knife?"

"You bet."

The ride home is eventful and fun; everything is eventful and fun so long as he is with the Avengers. They talk about making a visit to Clint's for dinner, they hadn't done that in a long time and the conversation briefly hits a sour note when Natasha brings up Bruce but apart from that, he's smiling as he's making his way up to his floor.

He sees her, sleeping on his couch and thinks that Tony was right when the engineer told Steve that he's a different kind of happy when he's around Liz.

He pads slowly towards the furnished living room, and bends his knees so that he's at level with Liz.

She's had a particularly long day at the hospital with meetings and surgeries and a problem with the bloodstock. She's been gone for over thirty hours and the occasional check-up with FRIDAY, who reassured him that she was fine and not passed out somewhere was the only thing that kept him sane.

It seems that she walked home and just fell on the couch. She's on her stomach, her hair falling off the couch, strands of gold and chestnut playing with the air. Her legs are thrown around haphazardly and her arms are in an awkward position, which definitely cannot be comfortable.

He plays with the loose strands of hair falling over her face, gently moving up to her face and tracing the freckles near her ear until she slowly opens her eyes and her lips tip up in a sleepy smile.

He doesn't feel guilt over waking her up, not when he knows she'll fall right back to sleep when he carries her into his bed; their bed.

She doesn't say a word as he picks her up bridal style into their room, just burrows herself into his chest and lets out a small sigh of content as he deposits her onto the bed.

He strips out of his uniform and surveys the room, spotting all the _Liz_ intricately blended into his room; the second nightstand holding her tablet and the picture of her and Tony, her coat thrown over his chair, the blue lamp that emits light the exact shade of the arc reactor for when she wakes dreaming of losing her brother, the spare room that's now her closet and the walls that she filled with framed photos of him and her and them and their family, old and new.

Steve didn't realize he could like home so much.

The clock reads eight in the morning and, despite it being the time where he would usually go for a jog with Sam, he texts his friend, apologizing for not showing up in advanced before placing the phone on his nightstand and getting under the covers.

Liz's eyes flutter open when she feels his presence and she smiles dopily, "How'd it go?"

"Good."

She juts her chin out in a sleepy gesture he's familiar with and he closes the distance between the two of them, pulling her closer by the shirt that's about five sizes too big for her because it's his. When they pull apart, she tucks her head under his chin, fitting there like a missing puzzle piece and he wraps an arm around her protectively, momentarily plagued with images of Bucky falling off a train and Bucky turning into Liz.

He wakes up three hours later to a series of expletives coming from his kitchen and he follows the burning sound and doesn't bother trampling down the fondness bursting in his chest.

Liz, still wearing his shirt that is five sizes too big but only reaches her upper thighs, stares forlornly at the attempted pancake that looks more like a black hole than food and even though he'd be more than happy to stare at her like this for the rest of his life, his kitchen is moments away from burning and so he has to clear his throat.

She looks at him despairingly, "I don't get it. I'm one of the smartest people in America, how the hell can I not make a pancake?"

He tries not to laugh and fails spectacularly and she pushes his chest lightly when he comes close, though pulling him back in and pouting in a manner that should be illegal, "Don't laugh. Show me what I'm doing wrong."

He dumps the beyond burnt pancake into the trash and takes the bowl of batter that he made a day ago from her hands, pouring the mix into the pan, "First of all, you're cooking it at too high of a heat."

She furrows her brows, "But that way it'll cook faster."

He pulls her towards him, pressing her back to his front and eliciting a smile, "No, you'll burn it."

He trails kisses across her neck and she arches herself to give him more access, laughing when the light stubble on his chin tickles her skin, "I think I'll just stay away from the cooking. I have you for that anyway."

"Always knew you were using me for my cooking."

She spins around in his arms and smiles up at him, a little drowsy and eyes slightly hooded and he tries to remember the last time he was this happy, "You also kiss pretty good."

The pancakes nearly burn because they're making out in the kitchen; she's sitting on the counter and he's in between her legs and they only stop when he smells the beginning of a burn and she complains but hops off the counter and gets two sets of plates and cutleries, cutting up strawberries for him and pulling out the maple syrup and chocolate chips for her.

In between mouthfuls of pancake, she asks him, "What are we doing today?"

Steve shrugs making a mental catalogue of everything he doesn't have to do today, "How long do you have?"

"It's my day off. I'm yours the whole day."

He slides his stool forward, wiping off syrup from the corner of her mouth, "Is that so."

Presuming from the slight darkening of her eyes, she can trail his thoughts but then she makes a face that is so inexplicably Elizabeth Stark and asks him, "But can we go out today? Eat lunch out or something; I feel like all I've been doing is work, home, work, home and it's driving me nuts."

She could have asked him to fly up to the sun and bottle some of it up for her and he'd have done it. She's in his kitchen that's now their kitchen and she's wearing his shirt with bed head and she's still got syrup in the corner of her mouth and she's looking up at him and he honestly thinks she can't get more beautiful than this but he knows she'll prove him wrong someday.

"Ya, Whatever you want, hon."

She beams up at him and he has to repress the words bubbling up his throat for no reason at all.

 _I love you._

He hasn't told her because he wants it to be perfect and, call him a sap, he wants it to be romantic and memorable. The words threaten to bubble out of his mouth every five seconds and he wants to shout it out from the rooftops sometimes; that he's irreversibly in love with Elizabeth Stark but, considering that the rest of the Avengers also live in the tower, he assumes that he wouldn't hear the end of it after that.

They go to the park where they first met, the park where she first saw him. She's reading something Charlotte Bronte, her head on his lap and her hair a halo in the grass and she thinks he's drawing the ponds in the swan but he's just drawing her. She's got a yellow flowy dress on and her feet are bare and the arc reactor necklace hangs off her neck as it always does and she's reading her book and occasionally looking up to smile at him; it's impossible to find something better to draw.

 _His drawer is nearly filled to the brim with drawings of Elizabeth Stark. Sam had found it and told him that he'd be calling the police if he didn't know better._

They eat lunch at the little Italian place down the street, with enough of a homey vibe to make both of them feel at ease despite the stares and Liz is comfortable enough to steal his meatballs and theatrically shove them into her mouth.

They're taking an aimless walk down the street when Liz tugs on his hands, looking at the sign stuck to the grass at a nearby cafe, "I didn't know they brought the exhibition here."

The sign reads _Captain America; A War Hero Story_ and has a large arrow pointed towards the other side of the street to a building where a steady mass of people walk into.

She tugs him and he follows, and they pay their dues and walk into the quiet exhibition filled with kids and adults alike.

He doesn't realize that he's forgotten until he sees the picture of him and Buck standing side by side in one of the pictures - his arm thrown around the friend that's alive somewhere,- surrounded by Howard Stark and the Howling Commandos. The weight of the secret crushes him like a boulder when he remembers, when he realizes how deranged it is that Liz makes him forget about the lie he knows about her family.

"I know him." She points at the man at the far end, three men down from him and he puts a name to the face instantly.

"Jim Morita?"

She shrugs, "Ya, sure. Met him once or twice at one of dad's parties I used to sneak into. Stopped seeing him after realizing dad's parties sucked."

She gets a laugh out of him afterwards but then he resumes silently staring at the photo of the men that stood by him when he was nothing but an inexperienced rookie subjected to a freak experiment.

"Do you miss it?"

She's referring to the picture and she's obvious in her hesitation to breach the subject. She's always had an inkling of fear that if he was given the opportunity to go back and change things, he'd take it and it wasn't until today that she, in few words, voiced her concerns to him.

And Steve looks at her, her eyes hold no malice or accusations, giving him the entitlement to miss it, because he does. He misses the Bucky Barnes that was his best friend and the men that he had laughed with during the war. He misses Peggy and he missed Howard and he misses Brooklyn.

He answers truthfully, "I'd give it all up again if it means that I get to have you."

He's gripping her hand like it's a lifeline because he needs her to see how much he means it. He misses Peggy and he misses Howard and the Commandos but he wouldn't trade Elizabeth Stark for anything.

He doesn't realize that soon, he's not going to have a choice.


	3. Chapter 2

**maybe i'm not good at discerning right from wrong; maybe i'm making a mistake  
but even if there's a chance i'm right, then that's a chance i have to take **

She's adopted a habit of calling it her lightning streaks. They, in some way, do resemble the shocks of lightning that would occasionally grace the sky prior to a storm.

The first time Elizabeth Stark saw them, she had just blown up a country, had watched it vaporize into the air, and was falling to what she had presumed was her definite death. Before the wrapping of cold metal around her arms, she had seen the thin streaks of colour that travelled through her flesh like electricity; had seen the colours glow around her, had been shaken to consciousness and had thought it was simply a hallucination.

The second time, she had twisted her foot in the middle of the ocean and had momentarily panicked and the colours that lit up the water did not help to ease her slight hysteria but by the time she had resurfaced, choking on salt and gasping for oxygen, the cracks in her skin that were colour was gone, and she knew better than to shrug it off.

She came to a conclusion, a conclusion supported by enough instances, that the streaks only appear when she loses control. She starts to panic or loses her grip on the lid that reins in her anger and fear and they're exposed through tangible colours over her skin.

She wonders where the colours come from. She's used to seeing lightning spark from her fingers and fire dance through her eyes but now there's reds and greens and purples and yellows and she doesn't know what to make of the new addition. She knows better than to fear the foreign entity coursing through her veins; she's had nearly three decades of doing that and it's given her nothing but pain and lies and she'll never take that path again.

These things should not be in the forefront of her mind as she's trying to get a word in during her conversation with the council, the members waving a thick document over their heads with misguided looks of knowing and she shares a look with her brother, who she'd already had this conversation with when they began hearing whispers of the Sokovia Accords coming into play.

She breathes in through her nose and lets it go slowly; her glowing rainbow isn't going to help the situation and she tunes back to the ending of Councilwoman Patel's long-winded speech about the Avengers and wrecking havoc and chaos.

Tony looks at her, and she nods in return, "Okay."

The word shocks the members into stunned silence, not having heard the word 'okay' ever come out of a Stark's mouth ever during any conversation between the two of them.

"Excuse me?"

Liz suppresses her smugness at having the upper hand, "We said okay. Obviously, we're not down with everything the Accords outlines but we're signing it."

She gives the Council a moment to look at each other; they had obviously planned for a fight of some kind and she is sure that both Tony's and her compliance has thrown a shift in their carefully constructed plans and raised suspicions.

In the end, there is nothing left for them to talk about. Councilman Gao sends her a tight smile and turns the video call off, the holographic figures disappearing from the room, bathing the floor within the four walls in darkness.

Later, as she and Tony go through the schematics for BARF one last time, he asks her if she thinks they're doing the right thing.

"We can't just destroy countries and walk away. Just because we wear masks doesn't mean we shouldn't have to answer to the same laws that everyone else does. How are we any better then?"

Tony rubs his temples, feeling an oncoming headache, "This isn't going to sit well with some of them."

Liz tries for a smile, "You mean it's not going to sit well with Steve."

"Hey, I'm trying to be nice about it."

She throws him the headpiece, "Don't bother; my boyfriend has a penchant for getting on the government's bad books. Who knew Captain America was so bad at following rules?"

"If Cap doesn't agree then Sam doesn't either," Tony points out.

"Much like you and Rhodey. We need to stop looking at this from sides and start looking at it as a team."

Tony's face constricts into something familiar, something she used to see when she would come home with an award or a degree only for her father to dismiss it casually, something pitiful and sympathetic and she hates it, "This is going to put a real hurdle on the whole team thing, you know. The Accords basically states that it's either we stay Avengers and abide by those rules or we don't abide by the rules and stop being Avengers."

"I don't think it's that simple."

She's right; it isn't. She knows that the title of an Avenger means nothing to any of them if it's going to get in the way of them saving people. However cherished the name, Liz knows that if any one of them had to choose between Avenger and hero, they'd always choose hero. Hero is, unfortunately, etched into their bones; she doesn't think any of them can stop without an incentive bigger than aliens and flying countries and government documents.

It's complicated because she knows that she and Tony are going to make amendments. It's complicated because she and Tony are signing not because they're okay with the Accords, not because they're okay with being put in handcuffs but because they need to be on the UN's side to change the document, make it less restrictive, make it fair for both parties.

It becomes complicated, even more so, when Wanda accidentally sends a bomb into a building in Nigeria. She's in Turkey when it happens, busy with overseeing a joint project between her hospital and another one and only opens her phone and sees the _128 missed calls_ and _348 unread messages_ at two in the morning.

She takes the next flight back home and walks in time to see Ross throw the Accords on the table. Her eyes find her brother, whose slumped tiredly in the back of the room and she feels herself going into a panic, and she has to clench her fists in an attempt to subdue her lightning streaks as she clashes eyes with Tony.

 _They were supposed to have more time._

Ross notices her arrival and gives her a curt nod, and she sends him a cold look in return, "Judging by the last conversation we had with the council, the Accords were still underdeveloped."

The Secretary of State meets her stare head-on, absolutely not fazed since he, for once, has the upper hand, "Things happen. Circumstances moved it up. Doesn't change anything."

He's wrong; the Accords coming into play now changes everything. She and Tony were supposed to have a year to negotiate the Act and make amendments. They were supposed to have a year to transfer power, a year to prevent a war, a year to fix things.

Now, they have a little more than twenty-four hours.

"You knew?"

Steve's gaze is accusatory and Liz wasn't expecting this to be the way she spoke to her boyfriend after not seeing him for nearly a week.

Tony gets up from his spot on the couch, "The Accords were in the talks ever since Sokovia. We destroyed a country you know. There had to be ramifications."

Steve is adamantly resolute in his opinion of the Accords. Liz knows it has much to do with the fact that HYDRA had infiltrated the government before; the fact that the previous Secretary of State was Hydra. Tony's pleading his case, fostered by the encounter of the mother of a child that had died in Sokovia, fostered by his ever-present guilt complex. Vision is making calculative points and Sam is putting in his own two cents.

She tries not to let the fact that, only a few days ago, they were discussing battle tactics instead of arguing about a legal document bother her.

Soon enough they're looking at her and she senses the impending storm, wills her control to save her, "I think we should sign it."

She can't bear to see Steve's look of disappointment, "Liz-"

"Hear me out, okay. We can't avenge the world if its leaders are out for our heads. They won't let us into active battlefields until we sign. We can't save people if we're running away from the authorities. What kind of heroes are we if the world is afraid of us?"

Steve doesn't contemplate her words, "We're not doing it for recognition or praise."

Some part of her knows that they shouldn't be having this conversation in front of the whole team. Some part of her knows that this conversation has somehow extended to beyond the relationship of the team.

"I'm not saying we're doing it for recognition or praise. I'm saying that Rhodey is right. We can't make enemies with the United Nations. We can't have people afraid of us. We can't just march wherever we want to whenever. That's not how this works." She tries to explain, tries to get him to see her side of things.

Tries to get him to remember the state she was in after Sokovia. After she came back with her bones failing her and her will shaky because she had to operate on the very people she had a hand in injuring.

Steve's animosity for the government and past traumas of giving up control prevent him from remembering, "You know what they'll do to us. Know what they'll do to Pietro and Wanda. You know what they'll do to you-"

They would have noticed the streaks of colour cutting through her arm if it weren't for the fact that their mind is preoccupied with trying to make the right choice. She doesn't notice the slight heat in her arm because she's raising her voice,

"I know what they'll do to me. I have a higher risk count than all of you combined. I blew apart Sokovia, remember? Signing this is like putting the repressor back on. Do you think I don't know that?"

Steve gets up from his seat, ignoring everyone else's discomfort at being privy to a conversation they probably shouldn't be present for, "Then why-"

Liz, who caught sight of the colours on her arms, remembers to breathe and calm herself down, "Because the UN is not someone we want on the opposite side. Because if we agree, then there's room to make adjustments. We can amend things; negotiate. We have the best legal team on our side. The trackers and risk counts and restriction could only be temporary if we play our game right."

Natasha looks at her, backing her up, "One hand on the steering wheel."

"One hand on the steering wheel."

Steve is silent. There's nothing on his face that lets her know if he's even considering signing. Liz looks at the rest of them in the room and they understand her silent implore as they, one by one, leave the room to Steve and her.

She takes a seat beside him, "Steve."

She doesn't want to push him but she's aware of the time restrictions, she's aware of the pressure.

He looks at her, his face a perfect match of her own, imploring to consider his side of things, "I've been blindly following the government my whole life."

Her hands rest on top of his and, in a familiar gesture, he rubs his thumb along her wrist, "I'm not asking you to blindly follow our government," she says, "I'm asking you to blindly follow me."

His face goes soft for the first time since she's seen him, morphing into a look she knows is reserved purely for her and she wants to hold him close and tell him how much she loves him.

"I'd blindly follow you anywhere, you know that. But the Accords ties my hands in a way that I promised I would never let anything do. I've been a good soldier for over 70 years, Liz, only to figure out it was all a lie."

She knows it's moot pushing the matter further. She knows that pushing too hard would only end up in the deterioration of one of the most important relationship in her life.

So she doesn't push.

"Fine," she lays her head on his shoulder feeling his lips press into her hair, "we won't talk about this. I haven't seen you in almost a week. I missed your face."

He manoeuvres her by the waist so that she's lying on top of him on the couch in the communal area. She's forgotten that he'd come out of a mission, a disastrous one but a mission nevertheless, only yesterday. She grips his shirt tightly biting her lip to hold back her words when he kisses her forehead.

 _I love you_

Instead, she tugs on his shirt, prompting him to open his eyes, "Promise me you'll think about it though."

She's expecting an argument but she doesn't get one, he simply looks at her the way he's always looked at her and nods.

She falls asleep shortly afterwards. When she wakes up, Steve's gone and all she's left with is a curt message informing her about Jim Morita's death and his participation in the funeral. She wishes he would have woken her up so that she could have accompanied him but Sam's text telling her to not worry because he's with her boyfriend gives her a fraction of peace.

And as she's going through the highly detailed document, far too detailed for her to believe the Council when they told her a few days ago that the Accords were a work in progress, she drops the stack of papers and stares at her hands, the lines on her palms, the print on her fingers.

She wonders about the streaks of colour that travel through her skin as if the flesh makes a pathway to accommodate it.

She's adopted a habit of calling it her lightning streaks.

She wonders what they really are.


	4. Chapter 3

**i've got reassurances that i'm right and allies brand new  
they don't mean a thing, not when i don't have you **

The knock on her door interrupts the dilemma lying on her bed and she opens the door to see Natasha and Pietro, dressed occasionally in a dress and suit respectively.

Liz schools her shocked expression a minute too late and Pietro rubs the back of his neck, somehow looking sheepish and smug at the same time.

"I think I'm going to sign."

She knows that she can believe in the Accords' potential all she wants but everyone that signs have to be a hundred percent sure that they're okay with subjecting themselves to the terms outlined in the document, at least until she and Tony find some way out of its restrictive measures.

She raises an eyebrow at the seventeen-year-old speedster, "Think?"

He relents, "I'm going to sign it."

She ushers both him and Natasha in, "Even though your sister isn't."

"Would you have still signed it if Tony didn't?"

She's thought about it. Slightly feared the idea that her brother wouldn't submit to the Accords' controlling demands. It took a day of fretting but by the end of it, she decided that it didn't matter what her brother stood for, not as long as she believed in the Accords bringing about the kind of peace that makes people feel safe and the potential of revamping the Accords so that it doesn't backfire on her years into the future.

She tells Pietro the condensed version of that.

He smiles at her, the boyish exuberance still intact even though there's the ever-present worry that's been there since they first met, "I think I can live with trusting you Starks to fix it."

She knows that Pietro has been hanging in the communal lab with Tony the past few months, helping him with the cars and being encouraged to enrol into school, a simple mechanics course that will prepare him for a job at SI that Tony had offered. The two of them had mended whatever grievances Pietro had against Tony in the past and Liz felt good to see Tony working with someone after Bruce disappeared without a trace.

"Are you planning on a trip?" Natasha stares at the several articles of clothing that she had dug up from her closet and brought to the room that is part hers, part Steve's.

She groans when she remembers the situation prior to the knock on the door and falls on the bed, looking up at one of her best friends.

"Help me. I don't know what to wear."

The Russian spy looks funnily at her, "And you think to ask me?"

"You seem to be doing alright in that department." She gestures at the elegant but suitable dress Natasha is wearing. She may be lethal on the battlefield, but Natasha has always had a knack for style and somehow always managed to dress appropriately for any given situation.

Liz, on the other hand, did not care for much beyond jeans and t-shirts and the occasional business attire. She had to fish out the very few dresses she didn't know she owned and throw them on the bed before trying to decide what screams 'Signing Legal Document that Labels Me As A Global Threat'.

Natasha rolls her eyes and shuffles through the dresses on her bed, before tugging out the green one that Liz has fallen over. It's more blazer than dress and Liz puts it on in the bathroom; tugging the sleeves up to her elbows and carefully arranging the tangle of chains that was Steve's dog tags and the arc reactor necklace Tony gave her years ago.

When she walks out, Pietro is gone and Natasha waits with a comb and a curler. The assassin had a penchant for many things and Liz had learned that hair was one of them. Natasha had once told her that doing things like cooking, dancing and doing hair made her feel less assassin and more human so Liz simply sits and lets her friend twirl her hair around the curling wand, before pulling the sides of her hair back and clipping them in place.

"Are you sure? About signing."

The redhead looks up from where she plays with the necklaces on Liz's vanity, "Ya. I'd rather not make enemies and I rather keep us all together."

Liz plays with the tiny arc reactor around her neck before nodding, accepting Nat's answer and walking out with her to the plane that would take them to Vienna for the signing.

Natasha stops before getting in and takes a step back, looking at Liz with a hesitant expression that's lined with something that resembles sympathy and pity and Liz knows what, more precisely who, the conversation will take a turn towards.

"I'm going to go to Steve first. See if he changed his mind."

Liz would have done that herself if it were that simple. If Steve Rogers wasn't the most stubborn, immovable person she's ever met. Liz would have followed him to London if she were brave enough to entertain the possibility that Steve would blindly follow her into the hell that was the Sokovian Accords.

" _You keep smiling at me like that and I'll meet the devil for you."_

She keeps herself from feeling the little tug in her heart that's a little more painful than she's used to and tries to smile for Natasha. She drops the act when she remembers that Natasha Romanoff was the woman that held her up when her brother was dying and made her feel a little whole again. Drops the act when she remembers that no mask is going to fool her.

So she just nods and walks further into the plane, spotting Rhodey and Pietro arguing over a magazine, knowing Tony will be fashionably late as always.

"Tasha," the spy must detect something in her voice, perhaps that shrivel of fear and the slight vulnerability because she pins Liz with a soothing gaze, tethering her in place and letting the words fall out,

"If he doesn't want to sign, don't-don't push him. I'd rather him not sign that regret it in the future."

 _I'd rather him not sign than regret me in the future._

The ride to Vienna is quiet, filled with missing people and uncertainty. There's a dark cloud hanging over their heads, reminding them of the consequences if they don't play their cards right, if they screw this up. Liz believes with every ounce of faith in her body that it would do the world good if they got this right.

She pretends that she isn't desperately waiting for a text from Nat; a text telling her that she and Steve are on their way, a text telling her that everything is going to be okay because Steve will be with her the entire time.

They walk into the large building in Austria, passing by people in suits and dresses that Liz remembers seeing on TV or working with indirectly.

A woman by the name of Paige directs the lot of them to the room filled with microphones and chairs and bustling with people. She leaves them be and Tony, in a manner so characteristically Tony, makes his way to the Council Members present, presumably to rile them up. Rhodes does his own share of networking, shaking hands with the people and trying to uphold a pleasant conversation.

Liz hates it. Hates the way they're all smiling at them, pretending like they're not cornering them into signing a restrictive document that takes away some of their freedoms; like they're not shoving them into a cage and forcing them to lock themselves.

"We should take a seat," Pietro whispers in her ear, and leads her towards the desk with her name on a white placeholder. Pietro takes the seat beside her, even though it's designated for Tony and she smiles at him gratefully.

She's tried not to panic reading her criteria for when she signs the Accords. Tried to breathe through the knowledge that they'll try and control what she had slowly learned to accept, slowly learning to love. She had tried to come to terms with the idea that they'll try and control a part of what makes her who she is.

She had failed enormously.

Pietro's hands grip onto hers and she takes away her attention from the wooden tables to the teenager, who tilts his head to indicate the arrival of Natasha.

 _Hope is dangerous,_ she decides when the redhead scans the room until her eyes burn into her own and her stomach plummets violently and she feels a burning sensation in her eyes when all Natasha gives her is apologies and sympathy and no Steve. She expected for the soldier to hold his ground, expected nothing less but she held a tiny inkling of hope, a little crumb of a wish that he'd walk in and make everything a little more bearable than it is.

With the hope gone, the room becomes too bright; there are too many conversations, too many noises and the walls start to close in on her. She thinks she said something like excuse me to Pietro and stuttered out an _'I'm fine'_ to Natasha but the next thing she knows is that she's bent over outside of the large building, one hand holding onto the wall for support while the other grips onto her agitated stomach trying not to cry.

"It's necessary."

The accented voice comes from behind her and she spins on her heels, tugging down the blazer dress and looking at T'Challa, Prince of Wakanda.

He introduces himself regardless, and she feels herself growing a little cold when she meets his calculating gaze, as if he's identifying a threat but returns the introductions regardless.

"Wakanda is happy to help even with the very little-"

She cuts him off, "I know about your secret tech country, my father was friends with yours." All the Avengers know about Wakanda, especially since the country was listed as a potential threat back when SHIELD was alive and kicking.

He nods knowingly, shrugging his shoulders and she wills him to go away, wills him to leave her alone so that she doesn't walk into the conference with streaks of colours pulsing through her arm.

"I know you think it isn't ideal, but the Accords are important."

She remembers the words on the pieces of paper that were given to her, made for her. Remembers reading things like _high risk_ and _unstable_ and _should be restricted_ and feeling like a ten-year-old again, feeling scared and hating the energy coursing through her veins. Feeling like the nineteen-year-old that willingly shoved a torture device into her neck in hopes of feeling like less of a human bomb.

She cuts the future king of Wakanda with a bitter look, sadness evident but impossible to conceal.

"You know I put a device in me that sent electric jolts through my system for ten years. It hurt like a bitch but I kept putting it in because I hated the lightning." She bites her lip and blinks rapidly because somehow, there's water in her eyes and she'll be damned if it falls, "and then there were aliens coming out of a hole in the sky and I'm taking the repressor off and finally starting to learn to accept the lightning, accept myself. Then I get this document and they're calling my risk factor and putting a repressor back into my system and telling me that I need to be controlled so do me a favour and spare the importance speech."

She's met with silence and she knows it's stupid of her to expect anything after she dumped two decades worth of issues onto a complete stranger and she walks away to leave and re-enter the International Centre.

"Do you know why Wakanda is participating in this?"

She looks at T'Challa, he's smiling slightly, raising his version of an olive branch and she looks at him hesitantly, opting to listen because her words fail her.

"Have you ever heard of the Black Panther?"

She remembers the fables her dad used to tell her when she would have a nightmare and Tony was off at college, "Ya, sure. It's a myth. Ancestral passing with some potion that basically made you Captain America."

T'Challa looks at her with disbelief, "You shoot lighting from your fingers and fought alongside a Norse God and you're telling me you think the Black Panther is a myth?"

She feels the heating of her cheeks before the pieces fit, "Are you telling me that you're the Black Panther?"

He nods, "Wakanda joins the Accords not just because our vibranium was used in the Ultron fiasco but because we have to prepare the UN for when Wakanda is exposed to the rest of the world."

It's an olive branch, she'll realize much later. He's giving her an olive branch and she grabs onto it; she's been fighting this war for so long and she's tired. She wants, she needs, more people backing her corner, she needs people to look at her and tell her that she isn't screwing everything up by doing this, that she isn't crazy for thinking that this will work.

They walk into the Vienna International Centre as she asks, "I thought that Wakanda was to remain a dirty little secret. You plan on changing things once you become King?"

T'Challa shrugs, and they both keep a well enough distance and remain stoic, aware of the several cameras trained on them, "Maybe not for a long time. But one day, it will be impossible to hide. The Accords, in a way, protects us."

"It might also perish you."

He turns around just as they're entering the large conference room and looks at her with a look that's pure knowing and slightly smug, "Not if you succeed in doing what you plan to do."

She doesn't want to wonder how he knows that she and Tony are planning on making amendments; how he knows that they're just signing so that they can infiltrate from the inside, "Does that mean you're on my side?"

He smiles this time, it's small but genuine and she believes she made a new friend, "If your side involves fewer shackles and more justice than I suppose I am."

He's waved over by some man she doesn't recognize and she makes her way to her designated seat, Tony looking at her with worried eyes as she smoothes the green dress and sits down. She tucks her hand into his and squeezes tightly, silently telling him that she'll be fine.

She doesn't tell him that she wants Steve.

She listens to the speeches and itches for his hand that's her lifeline.

She flips through the document, waiting and never hearing him telling her to breathe.

The bomb goes off and she's sent flying through the air, her lightning streaks jumping out of her skin to make contact with the air to create a cocoon of power that saves herself and Tony and she waits in vain for Steve to shout her name.

She's okay. She's alive and she can feel the blood remain inside her body. She's staring at the ceiling when she's really staring past the sky, to the man; to the _'he'_ that wants her dead,

"Not today, huh?"

She's got the UN on her side and made friends with a Prince of a super-secret country and she's about to infiltrate one of the most important documents in the world but she's on her back looking at the ceiling and the falling pillars with an ache in her bones and tears in her eyes.

She just wants Steve.


	5. Chapter 4

**i think i love you too much to risk watching you walk away  
so i lie like a coward and hope you love me enough to stay **

"I'm sorry for not telling you."

Steve looks at Sharon Carter intently. Blonde hair and brown eyes and nothing that really resembles Peggy Carter physically. But Sharon Carter runs into danger headfirst, stands up for what she believes is right and refuses to let anyone belittle herself and Steve thinks that it makes sense for her to be Peggy's niece.

Doesn't make being lied to any better.

"Not telling me that you weren't actually a nurse or that you were Peggy's niece."

His tone is teasing, trying to indicate no harsh feelings and Sharon smiles gratefully before shrugging, "I couldn't have told one without telling the other."

"I guess."

Steve puts his hands in his pocket. Conversation was never easy between the two of them. Back when he believed that she was just his nurse neighbour, their talks were laced with the awkwardness of a man who was never good at talking to women in general. Now, without the lies and deception, Steve's trying to keep in touch with Peggy's niece as if it would do him any favours in trying to remember the woman that he lost over seventy years ago.

As if it will distract him from the mind-numbing fear of losing the woman he loves to a government document.

"You knew him?" Steve angles his head towards the photo of Morita.

Sharon studies him for a moment, finding something that causes her to usher them both onto the couch in the lobby of the hotel, facing the TV, the last thing Steve wants to look at. Every news outlet is doing a story of the proceedings in Vienna, and a small crowd is gathered around each TV screen placed in the room, discussing and gossiping on what they think of the Accords.

 _Plant yourself like a tree_

Sharon Carter is perceptive enough to ignore the Accords in its entirety and instead talks about Jim Morita, "Aunt Peggy was close with the Commandos. They had dinner every month and she would bring me. That's when I met the Starks actually. Howard brought Tony and Elizabeth to one of those dinners."

He doesn't remember Liz ever mentioning Sharon. In her defence, he never mentioned Sharon either, "You were close with Tony and Liz?"

"Not as much as you are. Howard stopped coming to the dinner and by extension so did Tony and Liz. We lost touch, but it was fun while it lasted."

He doesn't know if he should feel guilty looking at her. It's obvious that Sharon loves her aunt, loved her aunt, and Steve wonders how much she knows of her death; wonders what Daniel Souza had told their family to protect Liz.

Sharon Carter's perceptiveness, he realizes, is all Peggy Carter, from the way she tilts her head slightly to the right and the way she smiles knowingly, finding amusement at having the upper hand, "I know, about the lightning bolt."

Steve doesn't say anything, he doesn't know where this conversation is going and he's prepared to listen.

He's also prepared to walk away if Sharon's going to put the complete fault on Liz.

"Uncle Daniel called us all in after Ultron and explained how she really died."

"It wasn't her fault." They both know who the ' _her'_ is in reference to.

Sharon shakes her head, "Yes it was."

Steve tenses in his seat, ready for an argument, ready to defend the girl that Sharon Carter doesn't really know, the girl that very few really know.

Sharon holds her hands up in a placating gesture, "Relax Steve, I'm not going to hunt her down and put a bullet in her, I don't think I'd succeed even if I wanted to."

"It was Liz's fault, but only to a minimum. It was Howard Stark's fault. It was Daniel Souza and Peggy Carter's fault as well. Liz should have never taken the repressor off, especially when she was angry but if the adults in her life had just taught her to love her powers instead of fear them, then the lightning bolt would have never hit Peggy, Liz would have never lost control."

His eyes face the TV screen now, reading the headlines about the various people in attendance at the Vienna International Centre, he tries to scan for someone familiar, anyone familiar and fails, "Seems to me that you don't blame Liz at all."

Sharon also turns to the TV screen, "I don't. She didn't call the lightning and she didn't want to hit Peggy. Her parents had died and she was mourning but her powers were her responsibility and in the end, it hurt no one more than it hurt her. We can't blame her because we're too busy feeling sorry for her having to shoulder all that responsibility on her own."

"She had Tony," Steve tells Sharon.

He remembers Liz telling him one night that at one point in her life, Tony was the only thing standing between her and a grave. Remembers her telling him that Tony was the only thread holding her together.

Sharon shrugs, "We could have helped as well."

The hotel lobby erupts in chaos at the same time the bomb goes off in the Vienna International Centre. There's a deafening roar in his ear as the residents bustle in anguish and his body doesn't cooperate with his head because he's stuck, _frozen,_ looking at the building that he knows houses the most important person in his life burn into flames.

"-eve"

 _Liz_

"Steve"

 _Liz_

Sam shakes him out of his obliviousness and he looks to his right to see Sharon gone. Sam pulls him up and for a moment, just for a moment, his legs give out under him because Liz was in the building and there was a bomb in the building and he's lost so much and he can't lose her.

 _God, please. Not her._

"Steve," Sam shouts in his ear, and he blinks away the red and focuses on his friend, who he knows is trying to stay calm even though the absolute panic in his eyes betrays him.

Sam tries again, "Captain," as if the moniker is going to change the fact that Liz and Natasha and Tony and Pietro are all in that building and he's supposed to take care of them, his team, he's supposed to take care of _her_ , keep her safe and he failed.

" _Let go. Nothing's going to happen to you. I'm going to keep you safe."_

He failed. He should have been there.

"Get the jet ready," his voice doesn't even sound like his own and he clears it to regain a semblance of control, "We're going to Vienna."

He tries calling Tony first. Pepper Potts' voice responds with a curt greeting and requests to leave a message after the beep. Natasha's doesn't even send him to voicemail and he's forced to click on the picture of Liz, sitting crossed-legged on their bed with an Iron Man t-shirt and hugging his shield and the line rings once, then twice.

" _Hey, you've reached Elizabeth Stark,"_ her voice painfully tugs something apart in his chest, and he closes his eyes and holds himself together, " _I'm obviously not able to answer the phone right but I'll get back to you as soon as I can. If I don't, then don't bother calling back. Chances are that I'm ignoring you. Hope you have a great day."_

"We're almost there man," Sam tells him from his seat in the Quinjet, the pilot manoeuvring the aircraft expertly despite his panicked state.

He stares at Steve from the mirror, Steve whose looks like he's getting progressively worse as the minutes go by, like a ticking bomb that's going to erupt any second if Elizabeth Stark doesn't show up alive and unharmed.

"She'll be fine Cap. She's survived a lot worse than a measly bomb."

They both know that there was nothing measly about the bomb that blew up the International Centre. They were there when they saw the impact of the weapon, far greater than any bomb that Sam has ever witnessed.

But they have to believe that Elizabeth, Elizabeth who got struck by lightning, Elizabeth who blew up a country, Elizabeth who had missiles fired at her, found some way to not only protect herself but the people around her, their people, from the explosion.

They land in a desolate place in Austria and by the time they reach the International Centre, the red tape around the building and the extensive amount of cops and bomb squads and bodyguards puts a hindrance in their plans to storm the place and demand for their team.

"Steve," The soldier turns around so hard that he gets a whiplash that should hurt but doesn't and he scans for any injuries on Natasha who clarifies, "I was out to go for a bathroom break. Bomb didn't hit me too hard."

Steve looks behind Natasha as if Liz would somehow magically appear out of thin air and when he sees nothing he looks at the spy, "Liz?"

Natasha, instead of giving him the relief he's desperate for, pulls him into a corner, away from the press and officials, "You shouldn't be here."

Steve grits his teeth, holding onto the thin string of patience he barely has, "I don't give a damn about what I'm supposed to do. Where's Liz?"

"I'm here."

His heart beats correctly when he sees her. There's a small scratch on her arm and her hair and dress are a mess but she's there and she's alive and Steve makes a choked sort of sound before making fast strides to get to her. He stops halfway, scanning for the injuries up close and when she smiles amusedly at him, blue meeting blue, he pulls her close.

"Scared?" Her voice is muffled into his shirt and he tries to pull her impossibly closer.

"Only a little. 98 percent."

She pulls away, her eyes crinkling at the corner and he cups her face as if she were made of the most precious glass and kisses her gently, once and then twice, taking her in after thinking that he'd lost her for three hours.

"Everyone else?" Sam asks and Steve has the decency to be ashamed for forgetting about him and Natasha.

"Pietro ran before the bomb could hit, Natasha was nearly out the door to begin with, and Tony's arguing with Pepper right now. We're all fine."

He turns around to look at Sam, catches his eye while he's engrossed in a conversation with Natasha, and smiles his thanks. He doesn't know what he would have done if it were not for the man dragging him onto the jet and brining him to Vienna.

"Steve," Liz tugs on his arm and pulls him further in the alcove a distance away from the building.

She doesn't make eye contact, biting her lip hard enough for it to turn red and Steve pulls it from under her teeth, "What?"

"The bomb," She looks apologetic and hesitant, "they think it was Barnes."

His world collapses for the second time that day, "What? How? How do they know?"

"There's video evidence. The profile of the bomber matches with your friend. Tony's trying to figure things out but..."

Perhaps his streak of protectiveness isn't exactly healthy. Perhaps his habit of running into battle with nothing but adrenaline and impulse might not work in his favour one day. But even as he works out the problem presented to him, he's already making a mental trip to where he knows Bucky is, thanks to the system Tony put in place to help, "Why are you telling me?"

"Because I didn't like the way you looked at me when you figured I already knew about the Accords and didn't tell you." She answers truthfully, continuing before he can protest and make her feel better, "and you were right. I shouldn't have hidden that from you. I shouldn't be hiding anything from you. So I'm telling you now. They think they've found the bomber and they think its Barnes."

The nitpick of guilt that is slowly eating him away from the inside rages on; sometimes he wishes Liz were just a little less perfect than she is, wishes that she harbours a secret that's big enough to destroy lives, break relationships. Sometimes he wishes he loved her a little less so that he wasn't so scared of the possibility of losing her.

Sometimes he wishes he were a little braver, to tell the truth even if it meant losing her.

 _For all that he can sacrifice, for all that he has sacrificed, he shouldn't be surprised that he draws a line at Elizabeth Stark._

She starts to make a little more sense when he pushes away the guilt and focuses on Bucky, "they're going to get him."

"And I need you to tell me that you'll stay out of their way."

Something that feels a little like frustration riles up inside of him, "He didn't do it."

Liz grips both his hands, holding it tightly to anchor him to the ground, "I know. But it doesn't make him look any less guilty if you take him and run. Don't blow this up before you give us, me, before you give me a chance to fix it."

 _Trust me._

She talks about guilt and fixing and chances but Steve knows that she's asking him to trust her. And he does. He trusts her with the Avengers, he trusts her judgment on the Accords, he trusts her with his life.

Not with Bucky.

She's not going to protect Bucky the way he will. In the end, no one is going to be able to separate Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier and Steve has one shot to protect the only person he's ever had and he knows it means that he won't trust Liz but protecting Bucky has been engraved into his system for far longer than Elizabeth Stark has been in the picture.

Someone calls her name, laced with urgency and she pulls away, hesitating. She looks at him and implores and he feels something cut deep and creates a wound.

"Stay, please."

It's as if someone else nods for him, as if someone has their hand on his skull, forcing him to move his head up and down and smile back as she grins at him, with hope and love before she's gone and so is he.

He becomes Bucky's Steve and amazes at how easy it is; being the Steve that fought alongside James Buchanan Barnes. There's a distinct part of him that yells _Liz_ and he doesn't ignore it. He knows there's apologizes to come. He knows that he's going to grovel at her feet, apologize for the mess he's caused, sign the Accords.

For now, he protects Bucky.

There used to be a time in her life when she would scope the news regularly; a time between sixteen to nineteen when she would imprint newsreels in her head, remember the names and faces of victims that died a death she had thought she could have prevented.

Male, 34 years old, dad of one, brutally murdered near 56 Keeper's Street, near the house the Jarvises had her over for sleepovers in.

Female, 16, aspiring pianist who volunteered at the local animal shelter stabbed to death three blocks away from her college.

Elizabeth stopped doing that once she put the repressor in primarily because it would give her another reason to take the Infinity Dampener off and also because the mental chart did nothing but help her hate herself further.

Today, she, unconsciously and without realizing, adds another face, another name to her list of regrets; her list of failures.

T'Chaka, 64, King of Wakanda, father of two, killed by a bomb at the Vienna International Centre, a few feet away from where she was.

So when she walks up to T'Challa, staring brokenly at the sight of his father being carried away, white cloth covering his face, she truly means it when she tells him that she's sorry.

"It was not your doing. It was Barnes' doing."

There's something in his voice. Something she can identify with, something that chills her bones, just a little, just enough for her to be cautious.

"The authorities have that handled."

He snaps his head to her, clearly not appreciating her cautionary tone and she wants to apologize over and over again.

 _I'm sorry I couldn't save him. I'm sorry I wasn't enough._

"The authorities aren't enough."

She takes a step back, his predatory glare and offensive stance betraying his thirst for revenge, his search for retribution, "Enough for what, T'Challa?"

He doesn't give her the satisfaction of hearing him say the words out loud; she had hoped that saying the words might have allowed him to take a step back, might have allowed him to reevaluate his decision, rethink the things that he stands for.

"Who lives and who dies isn't your call, T'Challa."

He doesn't even try and disguise the anger when he takes a step towards her, doesn't even try and hide the raw grief searing him from the inside, "He killed my father."

And this hits too close for comfort for Elizabeth Stark. Parent dead, child angry, child gets reckless, child murders, child never comes back. This whole mess is a repeat of her own and she'd be damned if she's going to watch someone else make the same mistakes she did.

"And killing Barnes is not going to bring him back."

He nods, but bitterly, slow and calculating, not an ounce of feeling, "Yes. But it will make me feel better."

She's nearly begging now, close to getting on her knees and asking him to save her the pain of watching someone else go through what she did, "It really won't. Trust me on this one."

"I don't trust you."

It's only hours later that she figures out that T'Challa wasn't the only one who didn't trust her.

At least the King of Wakanda had the guts to say it to her face.


	6. Chapter 5

**you shout and yell and curse and seethe  
but i'm a ticking bomb so please, just let me breathe **

She makes a pit stop at the compound before she goes to Berlin. There's too much on her mind and she's putting too much effort to keep breathing so Liz goes to the Avengers compound before she goes to Berlin because she doesn't know if she can face Tony and Ross and Barnes and Steve and her broken heart just yet.

Wanda's there, because Wanda's locked in there, and she's forgotten until it's too late and she's walking into the kitchen where Wanda stares outside the window forlornly and then at her accusingly.

"Look, I know it's not ideal," She can hear the exhaustion in her own tone and Wanda, kind but broken Wanda, furrows her brows and forgets about the lockup.

"Are you okay?"

She tries to say yes but there's a block in her throat where there should be words so she nods but it's weak and she just wants to collapse. Wanda smiles at her reassuringly, as if she knows, as if she understands. But Wanda's locked up in the compound, and even though this isn't bad as far as lockups go, this is probably amazing as far as lockups go, she feels guilty.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," she heaves in a breath because she sounds too weak, "we were supposed to fix this before this even happened but then Ross came in with the Accords and it didn't make sense because _we were supposed to have more time_ and everything isn't right and I don't know what to do-"

"Hey," Wanda grips onto her shoulders and practically shoves her into one of the kitchen stools.

"Your Elizabeth Stark, you're going to fix this."

She shakes her head, even though that if the circumstances were different, better, she might have hugged Wanda at her belief in her, "I don't think I can fix this."

By 'this' she doesn't mean the Accords, she means the mess with Steve and Bucky, the mess with T'Challa, the mess with her powers. Wanda doesn't know this, obviously.

So perhaps Elizabeth Stark's first mistake was not clarifying that she had the Accords under control. Perhaps her first mistake was letting Wanda believe that Liz and Tony didn't, in fact, have the answer to the problem that landed Wanda in a prison; a beautiful prison, but a prison nevertheless.

Wanda knows that right now, Elizabeth Stark is not in a position to give answers, throw out reassurances, plan solutions. The woman looks half-dead, too weary and a part of her wants to tell her to stay behind and let Tony and the others handle the mess in Berlin.

The other part knows that Elizabeth Stark is the only string that's holding this whole thing together and Wanda's selfish enough to tell her to wash her face and change her clothes and get on the plane because she's going to be fine.

Wanda doesn't believe it. Liz doesn't either. But the doctor does exactly what Wanda says and emotionlessly, as if she were a robot, makes her way into the floor that she and her brother had once shared and tries to look a little less dead and a little more her when she arrives in Berlin.

She can't bear to enter the floor that she shares with Steve. She'll break down otherwise and she doesn't know what they are or why they're here but she knows that if she breaks the lightning streaks that whizz through her skin and dance over her flesh will no longer be her secret anymore.

She doesn't even know how she gets there, but somehow, she's walking through the halls of the Terrorist Centre building; fuchsia tank top tucked into black jeans and heeled boots her preferred armour for the day. The arc reactor necklace rests over her breastbone, the chain hidden over the high neck of her top but reminding her that she, despite the lightning streaks and one breath away from a breakdown, is still Tony Stark's little sister, is still loved; is still human.

Sometimes, it's the little things that keep her going.

She catches her reflection in the mirror and mentally thanks Charlotte McCoy for taking one look at her face on the video chat and sending in her people to do her hair in waves and paint over the dark circles under her eye and fill in the hollows on her cheeks.

"Ms. Stark," Everett Ross introduces himself, but Liz looks in shock at Sharon Carter standing beside her. The girl gives her a smile and she returns it; Sharon Carter was a small fragment of Liz's life but an appreciated fragment, a fragment that she couldn't revisit after Peggy Carter.

"Glad to see you still alive." She sounds and talks just the same and Liz doesn't know how that's possible since the last time she talked to her, they were around ten years old and barely understood the complexity of the world.

"Glad to see you still kicking ass."

Ross looks between the two of them, "I'm sorry, do you two know each other?"

"We're cousins," Liz cringes at the poor description, "Sort of. Family friends maybe?"

When Ross looks at her suspiciously, Sharon raises her hands defensively, "We haven't talked to each other in years. I'm not going to spill."

The Task Force Commander sends Sharon away shortly after and gestures Liz to follow him, "We have your friends with us. Got themselves into a mess, Ms. Stark."

She doesn't know what to say anymore. She hopes Ross doesn't figure out that she's treading waters without purpose, that she has no idea what to do moving forward.

"Barnes?" She asks, remembering his panicked eyes as he fell from a Helicarrier all those years ago.

"Lockup," Ross replies curtly, closing the topic fast enough for her to understand that there is something pertaining to Barnes that he doesn't want her to know.

"Then I guess that's where we're going first."

She neutralizes her face through the suspicion directed at her; she straightens her spine, shoves at her anxiety, and reminds herself to breathe. She counts back from five hundred and keeps her focus on the long winding halls and the flickering lights as Ross leads her towards the room where they locked up the Winter Soldier.

 _Four hundred eighty-two_

 _Four hundred eighty-one_

And perhaps Elizabeth Stark cares too much for a world that didn't care. Perhaps she cared too much for people she barely knew, for things that no one else cared about.

But there's anger when she spots James Buchanan Barnes locked in a cage with restraints too strong for a person, and measures too inhumane for her liking. There's the kind of fear in his eyes that she recognizes all too well and it takes her a moment to see past the red.

"Jesus, what is he, an animal?"

"Ms. Stark," Ross begins to protest, but she cuts him off.

"Take that muzzle off for God's sake. What is he going to do, breathe fire?"

Ross and the guards in the room have the decency to look slightly ashamed and they walk towards the man and open the glass cage pulling out electric sticks and Liz remembers the repressor sending shocks through her system and she marches up to the men and Barnes in long strides.

"Move."

"Ms. Stark," Ross has his hands on his gun and she doesn't know if he's going to shoot her or if he's going to shoot Barnes but she isn't going to stand here and figure out.

"Don't you think the electric batons are a little extra, maybe? Poor guys got his hands and feet tied so tight I worry about his circulation."

Barnes is looking at her blankly but she doesn't recognize the murder that was there when they fought in the Helicarrier so she knows enough to assume that what Steve said about him being in his own state of mind again was true. She tries to give him a smile, tries to wordlessly reassure him but she knows that it falls flat, especially since she doesn't know how she's going to fix this, how to help him.

 _Four hundred twenty-four_

 _Four hundred twenty-three_

The best she can do right now is take the muzzle off his face even when Ross warns her, "He's dangerous."

"I'm a human stun baton; I think I can handle myself just fine."

Secretly, paying careful attention to the many guards that surround her, the guards that back up a bit after her previous statement, she loosens his restraints, just a fraction of a bit, not enough for him to escape suppose he was to use his super strength but enough for his blood to flow a little more freely and for the pain to ease just a little.

She murmurs softly as she carefully loosens the restraints, quietly enough so that no one but Barnes and his enhanced hearing can hear, "I'm going to go on a whim and guess that you're still Barnes. I don't know how to help you, but Steve's here and so is Tony and between the three of us, I'm sure we can think of something. I don't know how it works or if you can control it but I really need you to not Winter Soldier on me until we get ourselves out of this mess. I'm Elizabeth Stark by the way."

His expression doesn't change when she steps back and the glass closes but there's a hint of confusion, perfectly called for, and something else that she cannot identify, something like guilt, but before she can figure the man in front of her out, she's ushered out of the room.

"You don't think he did it." Ross' tone is accusatory, and Liz forces herself to stay calm.

"He was miles away from Austria when you found him. Supersoldier or not, that doesn't add up. Besides, the evidence is purely circumstantial, I just want to cover all the bases."

"His face was on camera."

"Exactly. This was the man that never got caught since the Second World War. You're telling me that he just looked into a camera?"

Her observations have unsettled Ross but she knows he isn't going to give her the satisfaction of admitting that this really doesn't make sense, "People get sloppy."

"Not these kinds of people. Besides, bomb isn't really the Winter Soldier's MO. From what I've heard, he's more of a kill one person with a gun kind of guy."

The room they, Tony, Steve, T'Challa, Sam and Natasha, are in is made of glass, she spots them sitting at the table with varying angry expressions, sulking like children and she, for the life of her, doesn't want to go in. She wants to run away from all this and never return.

She's used to not getting what she wants.

 _Three hundred sixty-nine_

 _Three hundred sixty-eight_

All eyes cut to her when she walks inside the room but she's too injured, too cracked to look at the expression on Steve's face, doesn't want to know what she'll see in it, doesn't know what she'll do if there's no trust.

So she looks at T'Challa, narrows her eyes and tilts her head, "Black Panther, huh?"

He has the decency to look slightly ashamed, even though there's a hardness in the corner of his eyes that signifies his thirst for vengeance, "I told you it wasn't a myth."

She, ungracefully, drops onto the chair nearest to the entrance and feels the hammer pounding in her head palpably, "I didn't think you actually meant running around the place dressed up like a cat. I mean, are the ears really necessary?"

When she receives no response, she looks up from where she dropped her head onto the table and stares back at the concerned gaze of her brother, "Lizzie, your deflecting."

"Gee, thanks for telling me. Wouldn't have figured it out otherwise."

The door opens to another person and Liz wants to cry.

It was not the ideal time for Thaddeus Ross to show up; no time was ideal for Thaddeus Ross to show up. The man had a particular hate for the Avengers, a special hate for the Starks, and he, in no way, ever made any situation better by showing up.

"Is this what you meant by handling it, Ms. Stark?" He accuses, points fingers, throws her own words back at her.

Elizabeth Stark tries to straighten her spine, tries to quell the churning in her stomach, and tries to remind herself to breathe.

 _Two hundred forty-six_

 _Two hundred forty-five_

 _Two hundred forty-four_

The arc reactor is cold against her breastbone and provides her with little to none of the comfort it usually does. Instead, it feels like a weight and she, despite swearing to herself to never do so, wants to yank it out because it's too heavy and she cannot breathe.

Ross' voice is curt and angry cuts through her haze, but doesn't make it better, "Ms. Stark."

"Don't Ms. Stark her," Tony, the voice belongs to Tony, "it's not her fault any of this happened."

 _Two hundred thirty-five_

 _Two hundred thirty-four_

"She said that she would get a handle on it. She told me that she would handle Rogers."

"What do you mean handle me, Liz?" _Steve, that's Steve._ She sees the colours on the tips of her fingers, obscured by the large table and she doesn't know how many breaths she has left to breathe.

 _Two hundred twenty-two_

 _Two hundred twenty-one_

Natasha's voice is barely identifiable and she wonders why no one is saving her because she's drowning, "Liz, you have to keep us updated on these kinds of things."

"No, she's supposed to keep _me_ updated on these kinds of things."

"Lizzie, what do you want us to do?"

 _Two hundred and one_

 _Two hundred_

 _Two hundred_

"Liz,"

"Liz "

"Lizzie,"

 _Two hundred_

 _Two hundred_

"Elizabeth you have to-"

The girl who stands up so harshly her chair falls to the floor. The girl who bangs her hand on the conference table. The girl with streaks of coloured lightning coursing through her entire figure, dancing through her eyes. The girl who screams, "Can I breathe?", who gasps for air and claws for sanity.

That girl isn't her.

There's fear in the room and she faintly sees Ross trying to call for backup and Tony glaring at him and then turning to face her, nothing but concern and worry in his eyes and she's glad that she doesn't see fear because that would have broken her for good.

Her brother takes one step towards her but she scurries back, her hands still pulsing with colours and her head still stuck underwater.

"Lizzie," he calls her name softly, slowly like he's talking to an injured animal but her defensive stance keeps him far away from her, far away from her potential to hurt him.

"I'm—I'm," she gulps for air and it's harsh and loud and the last thing she expected was to have a panic attack in the middle of everything, "I'm going to get some air."

She's out the door and into the streets of Berlin within a second. The colours on her arm have subdued but they're still there, even though they're faint.

She looks up at the sky, at the ' _he'_ that wants her dead, the 'he' that may or may not exist, and asks him,

"Is this you?"

' _He' is too busy coaxing six entities out of their caves. He is too busy, planning and prioritizing to notice that the girl with lightning in her veins and fire in her lungs who was supposed to be easy to kill, is slowly becoming harder to destroy._


	7. Chapter 6

**i asked you if you promise; it was an implore, a plea  
you thought you broke your promise, instead, you broke me **

If Steve Rogers were given the choice to hate only one thing, he'd choose silence. He'd choose to hate silence over hating the cold, hating Loki, hating the Red Skull, hating HYDRA, hating the Accords.

He'd choose to hate silence because silence was the sound he heard for seventy years in the ice. Silence was what preceded the ringing in his ears after he lost Bucky to what he had then thought was a train. Silence was the only thing he heard the first week he was awoken in the twenty-first century, holed up in an empty apartment with nothing but silence, his old enemy, to keep him company.

Silence was his only friend, his nightmare, his burden until he walked out the door one day and heard Elizabeth Stark and her infectious laugh and sharp heels and kind voice. After that, the silence was gone; replaced with the busy noises of New York, with the whirring of the Iron Man suit, the roaring of the Hulk, the sounds of the familial chaos that were the Avengers.

Silence was everything until Elizabeth Stark barged into his life and made it worth absolutely nothing.

Silence was absent in the early mornings when Liz would open the windows and let Manhattan drown in. Silence was fought away when she would pace around their floor, arguing with board members and laughing with friends. Silence was forgotten when she'd play music in her lab and he'd sketch the crinkles in her eyes and her tongue peeking out of her lips as she poured her entire concentration into her holograms. Even when she was gone, she took the silence with her, DUM-E rolling around the place and knocking things over, Tony barging up to steal things from his sister's lab, Jarvis reminding him of all the things he promised his girlfriend he'd do.

With Elizabeth Stark, silence was nothing but white noise, simply forgotten, thrown away.

The room is bathed in silence after she flees out the door, and Steve simultaneously itches for a pencil to draw the little cracks in her skin that shone with colour, the matching shades in her eyes and wants to claw at his skin for not noticing the broken way she held herself until she shattered entirely.

"FRIDAY," Tony's voice shocks him out of his stupor and banishes the silence and Natasha's pulling him back before he can follow Liz out the door.

"Panic Attack, Boss." The mechanical voice responds and when Tony's eyes widen, Steve knows he didn't mean to expose his sister in front of a room full of people that shouldn't hear.

"No, no, I got that. How about those colours? How long has she had them for?" Tony asks, waving Ross out the room.

Steve knows that the answer is going to break him. He knows that Liz was not shocked enough for this to be the first time the coloured streaks appeared to course through her skin. He knows that this, along with the fact that she's been battling her own demons, has been one of the many things he's ignored about his girlfriend.

"Since Sokovia."

Sokovia. That was nearly a year ago. He wonders how she had managed to hide something so obvious for a year. He wonders if it was that easy. Wonders if no one had been paying enough attention.

Tony looks at him and there's nothing accusatory in his gaze. Steve had always known, ever since he had schemed to get Liz on the back of his bike, that the man did not mind him dating his sister; Steve doesn't know what he would have done if that had changed. Tony looks at him and they share regrets. They should have paid more attention to her, they should have seen her breaking. They shouldn't have let her break alone.

Tony Stark knows, just by seeing the unfamiliarity between Liz and the attack, that today was the first day she's experienced anything of the sort. He had expected the repercussions of not just Sokovia, but taking the repressor off and dealing with her powers to hit Liz mentally as well as emotionally, he just wonders if the colours over her skin have something to do with her PTSD, or if it's another matter altogether.

"Excuse me," he absently tells the others in the room before he's jogging down the stairs and out the building where he can see his sister sitting on a bench.

He approaches carefully, as to not startle her, and seats himself beside her.

The wind creates occasional ripples in the lake in front of them. The water, bright and blue, contrasts greatly with the sky, contrasts greatly with their lives. Sporadically, a duck or a swan will stream through the lake, calling out to the others before flying off until they're nothing but specks in the sky. There's a sense of peace in this lake, despite it being located directly in front of a building that represents everything wrong with the world, the lake makes Tony want to forget for a moment and breathe.

"It was the first time, you know." His sister's voice is raspy and weary, barely loud enough to hear.

Tony keeps his eyes trained on the blue, "I figured."

"Kind of expected you to ask about the lightning streaks."

He raises a brow at the name, "Lightning streaks. Is that what they are now?"

His tone is perfectly neutral, purposely so, in order to hide his expression away from his sister. She doesn't need coddling, she's too strong for that, but she doesn't need for him to be the emotional mess.

"I don't know what they are. I just call them that."

"I wish you'd told me."

 _I would have made it better_

She turns around and he does the same, blue clashing with brown. Sometimes, he forgets how much he misses his mother until he looks at his sister's eyes, almost a matching replica of Maria Stark's, sans the various streaks of different shades of blue that Tony suspects are the outcome of her powers.

"I wasn't trying to—I wasn't ever _not_ going to tell you—I just,"

He watches her try and piece the words together in her head and he gives her space to do so, maintaining his neutrality on the subject despite his sister's well-known penchant of figuring him out, "What?"

"These powers-my powers- they were never really mine, you know? I'd always had to share them with dad, with the repressor, with Aunt Peggy—with you. For once, it was as if I had them all to myself, without the scans and science. I don't know, I thought maybe if I could think of it as my own, I'd love it more. It's stupid I know-"

He cuts her off before she can undermine herself, "No, no. Not stupid. They _are_ your powers, Lizzie. They don't belong to anyone but you. I just want to know if they're dangerous."

"Not dangerous. I did tests; they're, again, like an extension of me. Doesn't show up in any of the results."

He's guessed that much but it relieves him to get it confirmed. He's only ever wanted for her to be safe and healthy; learning to accept her powers is just an added bonus.

"Well, then I guess-"

The alarms, loud and disturbingly shrill, scare away the ducks and swans and Tony and Liz turn in time to see the faint red flashing through the windows, indicating an emergency. Less than a moment later, a herd of people are running out the building, in a chaotically confused manner, and he and Liz are up from their seats and running into the Terrorist Centre.

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say this is Barnes. Where's your suit?"

Tony slows his strides, walking behind Liz, "She's right here."

His suit of armour means nothing next to his sister.

They get thrown on their asses, one by one. He knows his limits, especially without the armour and seeks refuge behind a wall watching with suppressed fear as Barnes throws Natasha, one of the most tactical fighters he's ever had the pleasure of meeting, as if she were nothing but a rag doll.

Liz fares a little better, only because of her powers, but her attention is split between Barnes and Tony, so when Barnes escapes, his sister frantically looks for him instead of running after the Winter Soldier.

"I'm fine," he calls out, waiting for her attention before pointing in the direction Barnes ran off to, "Go get him."

Adrenaline is Elizabeth Stark's best friend as she runs relentlessly up the stairs. Much like Steve, Barnes accumulated muscle weight creates echoes of footsteps along the metal staircase and she keeps her focus towards her feet, taking a leap off the ledge and grinning in satisfaction when the water, that somehow doesn't wet her, swirls through her legs and carries her up and in front of Barnes.

The last time they fought, also the first time they fought, she had the element of surprise. She could bet that Barnes had never seen a person flying on a wave of water before and she had used his shock to her advantage when pulling her punches.

This time, the soldier is mentally prepared to see the elements dripping through her fingers and throws the first punch, the metal arm sending her toppling back a few steps, groaning at the joint force of supersoldier and vibranium.

"Seriously, come on man, that's not fair. You can't have both."

She anticipates the next attack, easily manoeuvring against it, materializing electric ropes that wrap themselves around the silver arm she would pay a ridiculous amount of money to tinker with; Tony would double the price. It's what she tells Barnes in between blocking his punches and throwing her own.

He's been fighting for longer than she's been alive, even longer than Steve's been fighting for. She's nearly his equal with her given advantage of powers and the lack of a fighting technique. Elizabeth Stark fights the way she lives, impulsively and without pattern. Her punches and kicks are expertly, but erratically delivered and it momentarily puts Barnes at a disadvantage that he easily overcomes.

She charges her hands electric, just enough for it to hit a notch below lethal, but before she can move, Barnes has got one hand, metal, in a tight grip on her wrist and he twists relentlessly. She feels a scream bubbling up her throat but Barnes' other hand wraps around her neck, and she gasps for air, vision momentarily going dark as the scene alternates between the top floors of the Terrorist Centre and a port in Coastal Africa.

The Winter Soldier drops her, harshly so, when something blonde and buff throws himself at him, and they both fall to the ground. Steve recovers quicker and he's up and at her side instantly, scanning her for injuries, taking note of the red on her wrist.

"Liz,"

She grips on his hands, squeezing tight only briefly, because Barnes has gotten up, "I'm okay."

Steve Rogers and Elizabeth Stark, when they were strangers, friends, lovers, had always fought flawlessly alongside each other. The only ones who could give them a run for their money were probably Elizabeth and Tony Stark. Steve has learned to anticipate and incorporate Liz's powers into the fight, while she knows when to move where in order to give the soldier full spatial capacity.

Barnes, despite bring practically unbeatable, is no match for Infinity and Captain America. Steve throws him to the wall within a matter of minutes and Liz has got a large ice wall that cages him in, trapping him between brick and frozen water.

"Help," The cry comes from down below, far down below, and Liz recognizes the voice as Everett Ross, "We've got a man down. Does anyone copy? Man down, we need help."

She panics for a moment, mentally cataloguing the people that she left behind, now eligible for being the 'man down'; Tony, Natasha, T'Challa, Sharon, and Sam. She's left at a crossroads between Barnes and the part of her that is a surgeon, the part that wears the white coat and hangs a stethoscope around her neck.

Steve tries to make it easier, "Go, save them. I've got this."

Steve tries to make it easier, and she loves him for it, loves him for everything he is, with all she has.

But there's a wound named trust that's been picked at, slightly, but just enough for her to hesitate in leaving Steve and Barnes alone again.

So she asks, "You're not going to leave?"

There's a flicker in his expression, a shutter of something closed so fast she doesn't know how to identify it, what to identify it as. But there's a flicker in his expression, a shutter of something so close to heartbreak, something so close to regret, to guilt, that she pulls him close, drowns out the pounding of Barnes' metal fist on the ice and the chaos downstairs until there is nothing but him.

"Don't leave." She rasps out in a whisper, so hesitant and vulnerable.

 _Don't leave me._

He places gentle fingers under her chin and tips her head up, so that her eyes clash with his, blue on blue and he gives no warning, no indication before he presses his lips on hers. The kiss is everything Steve Rogers is, is everything that falling in love with Steve Rogers is but there's an undertone of apologies and words and guilt and _I love yous_ that she doesn't decipher until much later.

He presses lips onto her forehead, and she feels the words as she hears them, "I won't leave you."

She pulls away but her hands still clutch his shirt; they don't know whose anchoring who, perhaps they have always anchored each other. Elizabeth Stark pulls away but there's always one part of her that stays with Steve Rogers, a part of her that will never leave.

"Promise me you won't leave, Steve," She hears the desperation in her voice, she might as well be begging but her world is falling apart and she needs him, needs him to be safe and not chased by the government.

"I promise."

And then she's running to Tony. Running to Natasha and T'Challa and Sharon. She's running towards them with absolute fear in her chest and prayers to a God she doesn't believe in her lungs.

And then she's helping people back up and sending them to the private health facility in the building. She's putting on the white coat and hanging the stethoscope around her neck and marvelling at how easy it is to be Doctor Stark; easier than being Elizabeth and Infinity.

And then she's breaking apart in the bathroom. Breaking apart without tears or sobs. Without screams or cries. She's breaking on the inside, layers slowly peeling off, cracks accumulating and pieces shaking violently.

She wonders if it would have hurt less if he didn't promise.


End file.
